


fire in the white of it

by gotothemoon



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:26:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27557584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotothemoon/pseuds/gotothemoon
Summary: The beginnings and ends of three women.
Kudos: 4





	fire in the white of it

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first piece of work. Please forgive any errors :)

**catelyn**

**i**

The dawning light is cold and hard, like the glint of iron, and Catelyn blames it for the thought that comes to her when she looks over her thirdborn - _he is dead._

It is a foul thing to think, but the sentiment has been her faithful shadow for the past three days, only given such shape in the daylight that she cannot mistake it for a mother's anxiety. It feels heavy in her head, in her heart.

Mornings are cruel in that way now. Bran lies in a square of sunlight, his skin drained of colour and warmth, his arms stiff at his sides and his lower half buried under furs. The maesters had examined his legs that first day, right after he was set down in this room, and the face they'd made when they came back to her -

Catelyn reaches out, holds a hand over Bran's face. His breath whispers against her palm and she sighs, settling back in her chair.

He's alive, she tells herself. That is enough.

_And if he does not wake?_

The maesters had shaken their heads, their expressions grave. They had no answer for that, which was an answer in and of itself. If he did not wake, then he was gone, and she would have to bury her son's body as it drew breath.

Catelyn presses the heels of her hands against her eyes, relieving the sting there. She cried all her water and frayed her voice with pleas the first two days. Through it all, Bran slept, and Catelyn can only live and pray.

And, when it gets dark, she thinks.

Because Bran is as sure-footed as he is reckless. She does not think that there is a single roof, tree or pillar that remains untouched by Bran’s hands and feet, and she cannot remember a time where they have failed him so devastatingly.

That Bran’s accident, then, occurred after the King’s party arrived does not escape Catelyn. She runs through the guests and most of them draw her suspicion. The North treated the crown as a lesser priority in the face of the coming winter. Was that a severe enough slight that somebody would punish it for?

There are so many strange faces here.

Catelyn shakes herself free of her thoughts. She sees Bran’s upper lip slick with sweat and leans forward to clean it. _Leave it,_ she thinks to herself. _Take care of your son._

Only…

She is right.

Catelyn is wrenched from half-formed dreams by the smell of smoke. She goes to the window and watched a store keep across the field burning, flocked by men yelling for water. She is torn between the need to remove Bran from the place, and the urge to watch.

It is the dagger, sliding out of its sheath, that gives the assassin away.

Catelyn pivots, sees a figure looming over her sleeping son and goes straight for the blade in its hands. She does not let go of it, not even when it cuts deep into her hands. She screams until the guards rush in and take the man off her hands.

He is a nobody from nowhere. He will admit to nothing.

Catelyn is silent, but she hasn’t stopped screaming. Her thoughts are full of it, her arms full of Bran. She lets his breathing guide her own, but her despair cannot be lifted.

She was right. Bran didn’t fall. He was pushed.

Petyr finds her the next morning, wide-eyed and frozen around her son. He has the dagger in his hands and Catelyn avoids looking at it. Her palms throb under the bandages.

Petyr seats himself beside the bed carefully. He clears his throat, drawing her attention.

“Cat,” he says, “I know who this dagger belongs to.”

When she does not reply, he continues quietly. “It is Tyrion Lannister’s.”

He could say any name. She knows, then and there, what she must do.

**ii**

When she spies the Twins over the evening horizon, Catelyn feels both relief and fear bone-deep. Relief for a warm bed; fear for the man that would provide it.

As they approach, the fear mounts, drawing up her spine, pricking at her sleep-addled eyes. She fixes on the silhouette of the Twins, like two fingers held up in salute, the Crossing a dark smudge between them, fog whispering underneath.

The mere sight of it brings her a deep-seeded comfort, one that she has not felt since Ned and the girls left for King’s Landing. She feels her throat, dry as it is, clench painfully at the thought of them.

Ned, beheaded for his honor.

Sansa, trapped underneath the Lannisters’ thumb.

Arya, lost to the winds.

Rage, startlingly bright and furious, scorches her blood. She swallows against it and exhales with effort.

They should have never left Winterfell. She should’ve hounded Ned more, should’ve drove in the danger of leaving what he knew – _especially_ because he was taking her daughters, her only daughters, with him. The North was too detached for Sansa’s dreams, and too guarded for a spirited thing like Arya, but it was home. It was _safe._

Now, Catelyn felt sick every time a messenger came from King’s Landing. Her sleep was plagued with the worst horrors - Arya’s bloodied body in an unknown creek; Sansa weeping in irons; Robb’s throat slashed in the middle of the night; Bran slipping away without notice. The nightmares threaten to tear her apart because even if they did survive this, even if they returned as one to Winterfell, they would not come back untouched by this. Her children would carry wounds that would outlast her.

_But they will be alive. I will bring them back alive._

She lets that promise accompany her fear, even when Walder Frey greets them at his doorstep with a smile that makes her scars ache. He declares their guest rights and even in Catelyn’s fatigue, the words ring hollow. Still, she trusts his word grudgingly, even when his eyes linger on Talissa, a heat in his gaze that awakens her.

It doesn’t surprise her that they are led to the Feasting Hall without preamble, though it does clear her head. The place is outfitted grandly for the wedding. The long tables creak under the weight of a hearty feast and the fires dance low, chasing away the chill.

She is placed at Roose Bolton’s arm. The man says little to her, which is just as well. Robb and Talissa are seated closer up front, their hands entwined. The Frey sons and Bolton’s own men fill the back of the Hall and line the walls, shadowed. Walder Frey’s daughters, shapeless and skittish, flit between tables to serve the guests. Catelyn knows of her host’s vice, feels a grimace pulling at her face.

Walder Frey smiles crookedly down upon them all. Catelyn feels the weight of his eyes move across the Hall. She remembers the guest’s rights, repeats them to herself. Robb’s men are half-starved and eager for respite; they fall into feasting as smoothly as they do with fighting, but Catelyn doesn’t touch her ale, not when the Frey men keep to the corners at their own sister’s wedding.

A sister who was meant for Robb. A woman who was meant to become the queen of his lands and mother of his children. Instead, she has been displaced for a girl with no name or repute. Catelyn looks to Lord Frey and sees his eyes dancing over the rim of his goblet, rheumy and jaundiced.

Unpleasant as he is, will he act on this slight?

The answer is obvious, but she is in his lands, under his protection. They have already insulted him once. Once, on its own, is beginning to look like enough.

Beside her, Bolton clears her plate. Catelyn stares down at her own, her hunger dampened. She cannot stop thinking of the Freys surrounding them. Why haven’t they started yet?

As if in answer, the bride appears, and Catelyn looses a breath. A hush comes over the Hall.

The girl is dark-eyed and moonlit, so unlike her father. Dimly, Catelyn registers the surprise that skips across her brother’s face, and the warmth that follows closely after. She is lovely, perhaps the loveliest of Frey’s daughters.

She was meant for Robb. Sweat trickles down Catelyn’s neck.

When it is done, the blushing couple are whisked away, the cheering and hollering die as soon as the doors close behind them and Catelyn doesn’t imagine it, it’s not just her overworked mind – there is tautness to the air that pulls every eye to Lord Frey.

His grin splits his face into two. He claims to have a gift for the King and Queen of the North. He says this in a tone that needles at Catelyn, makes her look away.

Bolton meets her gaze coolly, before dropping his own down to –

His arm. _Chainmail._

Catelyn blinks. Faraway, she hears a murmur in the shadows.

_Ambush._

Catelyn rises, her voice cracking: “Robb, don’t –“

The first Frey darts forwards, grips Talissa from behind and runs her through with a sword. Catelyn only sees her gape, her eyes wide open, before she topples.

The fight begins before she hits the floor.

A cry tears up Catelyn’s throat as she knocked aside by the chaos and slammed into a wall. Through watering eyes, she sees Stark men surge out of their seats, only to be cut down as quickly by a storm of arrows from above, where a line of Frey men aim crossbows, hard-eyed. Others find their end on a Bolton or Frey sword. Walder Frey blurs in and out of her vision, his words drowned out.

Catelyn struggles to her elbows, her heart pounding in her ears, her fear electrifying every sense. _Robb, Robb, Robb._

She sees him, covering a body – Talissa, she registers with a gasp – with crossbows spearing his back. A pool of blood glistens wetly around them, and, even in the din, she can hear his pleas.

Her son, losing his wife and unborn child in one swoop, with his own life dwindling by the second.

Never has Catelyn known despair before this.

She struggles to her feet, eyes roving over the bodies for _something._

There, underneath a table, two eyes blink back at her. Catelyn places the woman – a wife of Lord Frey – and without thinking she drags the girl out by her collar, slips out her dagger and holds it to her neck. She feels the girl’s pulse vibrate the blade.

Robb has gone nearly silent. Catelyn wants nothing more than to take them both away. She fixes on Walder Frey, who regards her mildly. She is surrounded by armed enemies, itching to draw blood, but there is only him and her now.

The words come in a hot rush – she offers her life for her son, offers no retaliation if they are let go, and when Frey doesn’t answer, she threatens the life of his wife, the girl trembling in her arms.

It is like shouting into a well. There is only blackness in Frey’s reply: he can wed another. Catelyn lets her tears fall, her hold on the girl slipping.

In the space between breaths, Bolton thrusts a sword through her son’s heart, his parting words: _The Lannister’s send their regards._

Catelyn cuts her dagger across the girl’s throat reflexively. She only sees Robb on the ground, unmoving, the last of her nightmares. The dagger slips out of her hands; her head feels light. A hand comes around from behind her, metal in its grip.

She is gone in another breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
